396 
Farm Reports. 
is faithful to it, and in the Vale of Yarrow every one breeds half- 
breds if his land is low enough, and he has plenty of winter-keep. 
In the Bowmont Water District the farmers go a step further, 
and use Border Leicesters to the four or five year old prime 
Cheviot ewes, which are then in the very height of their milk, in 
order to breed half-bred rams for the Kelso ram fair. Breeders 
are very particular about these rams, and some of them go to 
Sutherlandshire for picked ewes to breed them from. Those 
who breed half-breds give the ewes six to eight weeks of turnips 
in winter, or they could never nurse their much heavier lambs. 
Hence half-bred lambs increase marvellously in the ranks at 
Melrose Fair. There have been from seventy to eighty thousand 
on sale there, with the ewes and wethers always separated; 
whereas five-and-twenty years since fully half of them were 
Cheviots, 
Mr. Borthwick, of Kilham, has departed from this half-hill 
system only in this respect, that he uses half-bred, instead of 
Cheviot ewes. A short ride from Hawick to Kelso, and then 
along the banks of the Tweed, through the very heart of the 
pastures where the famous Mellendean rams were grazing, 
brought us to Cornhill, a small village, where the Northumber- 
land Society held its meeting last year, and the nearest station 
for Kilham. From thence we strike some four or five miles 
inwards towards the spurs of the Cheviots. The road lies through 
the rich turnip and barley soils of Campfield. In front are the 
farms of the Learmouths, names very familiar to the parlia- 
mentary ear some thirty years ago, when the Corn Laws were 
the topic of the hour, and the fall in their rentals was reg,arded 
as a significant barometer. Mindrum, which stretches away 
towards Yetholme, and contains the boundary-fence of North- 
umberland and Roxburghshire, and Mindrum Mill — the fine 
holdings of Mr. Charles Borthwick and Mr. Lynn — are on our 
right, till we ride down Bowmont Water. The rich holms 
through which it runs are flanked by the steep hill sides of the 
farms of Downham and Thornington, whose tenant has sold many 
a good hunter to Earl Wemyss. The incline is so great that the 
man has a complete " oversight " of his horse as he drives his 
turnip-ridger ; and, as we approach Kilham, we find the female 
turnip-hoers working thirty strong, unicorn fashion, and some of 
them taking their mid-day siesta, full length, among the well- 
thinned rows. 
Kilham is the property of the Earl of Tankerville — who owns 
pretty nearly alternate farms with Earl Grey along the road from 
Cornhill. The present tenant, Mr. Alexander Borthwick, entered 
upon possession as successor to Mr. Boag, in 1844. Of the 2050 
acres, about 800 are arable, 150 of which are in turnips; and 
